In Memoriam: Ghazala Azmat (1979 - 2025)

We are deeply saddened to share that Ghazala Azmat, Professor of Economics at Sciences Po, passed away on Saturday, June 7, 2025. Ghazala was a leading applied microeconomist, Director of the Organizational Economics Programme at CEPR, a valued member of the Executive Committee and Council of the European Economic Association (EEA), and a deeply respected colleague and friend.

Ghazala received her PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics. She held academic positions at Queen Mary University of London and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra before joining Sciences Po. She was a Research Fellow at CEPR, CESifo, and IZA, and a Junior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. Her institutional leadership reflected her broad intellectual reach and deep commitment to the profession, including her role as Chair of the EEA’s Standing Committee on Women in Economics, where she worked tirelessly to improve representation and support for women and underrepresented groups in economics.

Her research focused on labor markets, education, gender inequality, and organizational behavior. She combined careful empirical work with a strong interest in how institutions and incentives shape individual decisions and social outcomes. Her work was rigorous, policy-relevant, and always grounded in meaningful real-world questions.

One of her most relevant contributions was the study of gender inequality in the labor market. Her 2017 article in the Journal of Political Economy used novel data on the career trajectories of lawyers, to study the determinants of gender gaps in earnings and performance. Their results highlighted the importance of career aspirations, which reflected professional concerns as well as traditional gender roles. This work opened the door to further studies on promotion gaps, career aspirations, and team composition, helping us understand how disparities emerge and persist within firms and institutions.

Education remained a central focus of her research throughout her career. She used field experiments and empirical models to study how information, feedback, and changes in the stakes of evaluations affect students’ decisions and motivations. Her 2019 Management Science paper showed that relative performance feedback can have complex effects on student outcomes. She also studied how students revise their choices based on new information about the returns to higher education, and how individual responses to high stakes environments shape long-term opportunities.

Ghazala was also active in public policy work, particularly in the UK, where her contributions through the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE addressed gender gaps in the labor market, university funding reform, and broader socioeconomic challenges.

Among her most ambitious projects was the ERC-funded UNEQUALED (Unequal Education: The Role of Educational Constraints in Shaping Inequalities, 2022 - 2027), which examined how structural constraints in educational decision-making contribute to inequality. The project had already begun to produce valuable insights and has now been interrupted by her untimely passing. We hope it will continue through the work of her coauthors and colleagues, many of whom were shaped by her intellectual clarity and collaborative spirit.

Beyond her academic contributions, Ghazala had a profound impact on the economics community. She was a generous, principled, and deeply loyal colleague. She gave particular attention to those more likely to face disadvantages in academia, young researchers, women, and scholars from minority backgrounds.

Discreetness was a core personal value for Ghazala, one she upheld with grace and strength throughout her life. Those who had the privilege to work with her, or simply to know her, felt her lasting presence. She left her mark not only through her research, but in the way she treated others, with care, respect, and extraordinary kindness.

Ghazala is survived by her husband and coauthor, Vicente Cuñat, and their two young children, Iliana and Adrien. Our thoughts are with them. We hope that the time they shared with her, full of love, learning, and joy, will continue to nourish and guide them throughout their lives.

Her passing is a profound loss. Ghazala Azmat was an exceptional economist whose work deepened our understanding of key challenges in education, labor markets, and inequality. But more than that, she was a treasured and trusted colleague, and a dear friend to many. We will miss her insightful conversations, her generosity, and her quiet strength. She made us all better.

Thank you, Ghazala.